


Good Intentions

by Merrinpippy



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Grief/Mourning, Identity Issues, Idiots in Love, M/M, Miscommunication, this started off as a time traveller's wife au but veered wildly off course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merrinpippy/pseuds/Merrinpippy
Summary: Gerry’s life is terrible and he is not having a good time.He is in fact having the opposite of that, because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want to deal with in the wake of Michael’s death, it’s the very being that killed him and is currently wearing his face.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael, Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley, Oliver Banks & Michael
Comments: 22
Kudos: 146
Collections: Gerrymichael Big Bang 2020





	Good Intentions

Gerry’s life is terrible and he is not having a good time. 

He is in fact having the opposite of that, because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want to deal with in the wake of Michael’s death, it’s the very being that killed him and is currently wearing his face.

He should have paid more attention. Should have realised the door he left the Institute through wasn’t the one he usually used. But he had been in a hurry. Hadn’t wanted to stay in Gertrude Robinson’s presence for a second longer with her half-hearted platitudes and insistence that Michael’s death was for the greater good. 

But that’s… unimportant. For now, anyway. Because he needs to get out of this nightmare optical illusion corridor before anything from the real world matters again, and it doesn’t seem to be happening at all. 

For all of the eye tattoos on his hands, he cannot see through the headache of a hallway to any sort of exit. He’s heard the old maze trick and has been sticking left every time, but what good is that when the Spiral can distort anything? How does he even know he’s going left at all? 

He bangs on the wall in annoyance, hissing at the pain of its jagged edges— another thing he can’t quite see, or see through— and hears Michael’s voice behind him, wrong and echoey and laughing this horrible laugh that pierces his heart with how much he has missed it in its original form. If he didn’t already know this was a creature of the Spiral, he might be reminded of a spider, summoned by a plucking of its web. 

Gerry pushes on. He has no desire to discover the fate that befell his best friend, and… well, no point lying to himself here. That would probably give the Spiral, the _Distortion,_ more power anyway. Michael was… Gerry loved him. He’d never done anything about it, never rocked the boat in that manner, but he did. And now Michael is gone, and the _thing_ stalking him through the hallways is what killed him. 

Gerry’s half tempted to stop and fight the thing, but his saner mind knows that it’s fruitless to do so unprepared. 

It doesn’t matter which doors he goes through, which turns he takes. The laughter stays behind him, at exactly the same distance. Gerry gets the impression the thing is toying with him, and it makes him angry.

“What do you want?!” he yells. Nothing answers. “Isn’t killing him enough?” 

The laugh dies down, though the echo remains. Gerry is about ready to throw open any door he sees regardless of any sense of danger, but the colour of the next one he finds trips him up. It’s yellow, like the one he came through.

There’s no way it was this easy. Not after all that. 

He pushes through anyway.

He steps out into a shady awning. In front of him, a garden path up to a fountain, and hedges beyond that. He’s never seen this place before. Bright and sunny. Might not even be England.

On the one hand, it doesn’t look like the inside of the Spiral’s corridors anymore. On the other, it could easily be a trick. Another way of toying with him. Well, it doesn’t matter, he decides. He’ll find his way out regardless. 

He winces as the sun hits him right in the eye when he steps out. Too used to the awful fluorescent lighting of the hallways, he supposes. And since it’s the Spiral he’s dealing with, he could be anywhere on Earth— he should be grateful he’s in a garden and not a desert or something. The tan would really mess up his look. 

Movement stops his progress, not that he was making much of it. Through a nearby window. The only door he sees, however, is the yellow one he came through, and he’s not going in _there_ again. Maybe if he finds whoever moved, he can ask where the hell he is. He changes course, not away from the house or manor or whatever, but alongside it. 

It’s a well-preserved building, not too old or in disrepair. The garden is well kept as far as he can see, which suggests money; either enough to employ a gardener or enough that the owners have the free time to do it themselves. Annoying, really. Gerry never does well with rich people. Too pretentious and up their own arses. Not that Gerry _isn’t_ pretentious, he just does it with style and a cig in his hand when he can. 

“Hello?” he calls. It’s weird to not hear his voice thrown back at him distorted. Some of the tension in his chest eases. 

There’s a childish gasp and giggle, and then a face at the window he’d noted before. Gerry approaches it slowly, trying to look non-threatening to the child on the other side. 

The child opens the window like a door and crawls right out. Figures. Children.

The child, a little boy, is small and scrawny with curly blond hair and a crooked nose. He imagines that’s what Michael looked like as a child— and then tries not to react physically to the pain in his chest at the thought. 

“Hi,” he grits out. “Can you tell me where we are?” 

The boy grins toothily up at him. “My house,” he answers. “Who’re you?” 

Gerry grimaces and kneels down so the two are eye-level with each other. “I’m Gerry, and I’m a bit lost. What’s your name?” 

The boy puffs his chest out. “I’m Michael!” he says. Gerry feels the blood drain from his face as he stares. 

“You…” he trails off, unable to finish the sentence. It’s a coincidence, it has to be. He staggers back. “Where’s… where are your parents, Michael?” 

The boy frowns at him, puzzled by his behaviour, but then crawls back through the window. 

“I’ll go find them!” he calls back. And then Gerry is alone. 

He looks back from where he came. The yellow door isn’t there anymore. If this is a trick, he’s still trapped in a mind game targeting him through… well. It’s an obvious sore spot, considering it was the Spiral who killed Michael, after all. The Spiral and Gerry’s own negligence. Because he should have noticed, should have realised that it was only a matter of time. After Jan’s death… he should have put it together that it was Michael who Gertrude would sacrifice next. But he was too selfish. Too caught up in his own feelings, his developing friendship with the man. 

And now he’s dead, and Gerry’s here. Wherever ‘here’ is. 

“Oh, hello! You must be the sitter,” a woman’s voice says, coming up to the window. “Oh, I know, the front door’s hard to find. Sorry about that. Feel free to come in.” 

Gerry stares at her for a second. She looks like Michael in makeup and a long wig, and he has no doubts that the little boy really is his Michael. Which means he has to still be trapped in the Spiral. He steps through the window cautiously, never breaking eye contact with the woman, but when he’s inside she just smiles at him.

“Kitchen’s that way. If he gives you any trouble, my husband and I will be in our studies. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few hours.” 

And then she’s gone, leaving him and Michael in the room together. 

“I know it’s a trick,” he tells the boy. “You’re not real. None of this is. Let go of the farce.” 

Michael tilts his head. “I like playing pretend,” he says. “Me and Ryan play all the time. But I don’t want to play it right now. Right now I want to play with cars.” Michael ambles to the other side of the room, where a pile of cars are set up in a chase. When Gerry doesn’t move, Michael pouts. “You too,” he insists. 

When minutes pass and nothing happens beyond Michael playing with the little toy cars, Gerry joins him on the floor. Michael grins at him in reward. 

“This can’t be real,” he says aloud. “Because that would be time travel, and time travel is impossible.” 

Michael looks at him like he’s dumb. “Not if you use a time machine,” he says. 

“Uh-huh.” 

It’s actually… not bad, playing with this little kid. His toy cars are almost cool; there’s a little hearse Gerry finds himself fiddling with when he’s not paying attention. He doesn’t see how it’s supposed to be driving him insane or anything, but he’s still convinced that it’s a trick of the Spiral. Unless it isn’t, because the Spiral is all about not making sense, and time travel of this kind sure doesn’t make sense. Ugh.

Hours pass without much change. Michael flits from activity to activity, but he mainly goes back to the cars. Gerry would leave, but if this really is the past, where would he go? That is, until he looks up and the door to the kitchen is no longer the door to the kitchen, but a familiar yellow one instead. 

He’s through it without a second thought.

* * *

His hand clenches around empty air, itching for a weapon of some kind as he follows the endless twists and turns. He wishes it was as simple as a straight up fight. Those, he’s in his element for. But he doesn’t know if he can fight this thing that wears his Michael’s face and speaks his voice. Can’t even summon it to him; he’s hardly going to call it ‘Michael’. It doesn’t deserve the name of the man it’s killed and skinned. 

“You’re thinking _awfully_ loudly,” the echoey voice comes. Seems he didn’t have to summon it after all. 

“What, so you can hear my thoughts now?” Gerry growls and spins on his heel, coming face to face with the thing of nightmares. 

Its grin is too wide, its hair too large and spiralling. Its eyes are filled with fractals that hurt to look at, though Gerry forces himself to anyway. “No,” it answers him. “But driving oneself insane is a sure way to let me hear you.” 

“And that’s what you want, right? That’s why you’re wearing his face? Showing me what his childhood might have looked like?” 

The thing tilts its head. “Childhood…” It laughs. “Looks like I need to be more careful. You’re going mad a bit too fast. Seeing things doesn’t tend to bode well for the mind.” 

It’s lying. It has to be. 

“What, so you’re telling me I _did_ find the exit and just happened to time travel?” Gerry scoffs, derisive. 

“Does it make sense that you time travelled?” 

“No!” 

“Well then…” It shrugs. “Who knows?”

They stare at each other until Gerry’s eyes begin to hurt. “You’re not... you’re not waiting for me to answer that, are you? Because the answer is you, and I’d appreciate the truth. It’s the least you can do after everything.” 

Its gaze narrows. “You think I’m a monster. Yet you’re trying to reason with me.” 

Gerry gestures around him. “Nothing else has worked.” 

It bares its teeth; there are too many in its mouth, and attempting to do the math on that hurts his brain, so he looks away. “You do not understand what you are trying to work towards. That is why.” 

“Why what? Why you won’t let me out?” 

Its face splits more into a too-wide grin. “Out of where? You don’t even know where you are.” It advances on him by a step and Gerry jerks backwards. He doesn’t want to see this mockery of Michael any closer than he has to. “You don’t know anything really, do you? That is the problem of the eye, of course. Sees all and understands nothing. Unfortunate for you.” Its eyes gleam as it reaches for him. “Wonderful for me.” 

As its hand reaches his throat, strangely sharp for the soft skin it’s pretending to have, Gerry sneers. “Is that what you told Michael Shelley before you killed him?” 

Strangely, that makes the thing freeze. It stares at its hand with an expression Gerry can’t quite decipher for all the twisting it’s doing, and then it snatches the hand back. 

“Behave,” it instructs. And then it sinks into the wallpaper.

* * *

“I’m losing the fight,” Michael greets the only other person in this section of Gorsedd Gardens, a smartly dressed black man reclining on a rustic park bench. 

To his credit, Oliver Banks does not try to understand. He simply inclines his head and waits for the explanation. 

“Between Michael Shelley and… what I’m becoming. I nearly hurt him today.” 

“A bit counterproductive,” Oliver agrees. 

He gestures for Michael to sit next to him; it perches on the arm of the bench in a position that would make a human deeply uncomfortable, but which accommodates the twists and folds of Michael’s being as best as any seat can. 

“Does it need to be a fight?” he asks. 

“What else would it be?” 

Oliver hesitates. “A transition, maybe. It took me a while to be at peace with myself too, but I got there. And I’m better for it.” 

“But that begs the question: what is… myself? What is there to be at peace with?” Michael scoffs. “A manifestation of madness inside a corpse.” 

Oliver considers it. “Maybe it would help if you stopped seeing yourself as two separate things instead of one whole.” 

_“He_ doesn’t,” Michael counters, scowling. 

“Have you explained it to him?” 

“What is there to explain? He’s right. Michael Shelley, pathetic weakling, died at my hands and— _became_ me. He sees me as a monster. He’s right. He’s lucky he’s still sane for how long I’ve kept him trapped inside my hallways.”

There’s a hint of mirth in Oliver’s expression as he asks, “And what _are_ you doing to him in there?” 

Michael shrugs. Somehow its arm ends up below the bench in the process. “Lying, of course. Distracting him.” But it is tired of talking about Gerry. Michael Shelley could talk about Gerry for days without pause, but for Michael it is tiring. It knows Gerry hates it with every fibre of its being, and though it shouldn’t be, it’s hard for it to stomach. It changes the subject.

“How goes the killing?” 

“Well,” Oliver says. Then, “Not well enough. Avatars of the Desolation are many, and they hold a grudge like no-one’s business. Keay must have really pissed them off, too, because they’re not even close to stopping.” 

“Gerry drowned a few of their little monsters, I assume that’s why,” Michael says offhandedly. “You’re certain you’re not putting them off?” 

Oliver huffs a laugh. “It’s like they’ve made a deal with the Hunt. They’re loving the chase.” 

“Then he stays inside,” Michael concludes, resigned. 

Oliver nods, but then his eyes lock onto what Michael assumes is its face and he freezes. “Michael…” he whispers. “You’re bleeding.” 

Michael frowns and turns its eyes towards what Oliver is staring at. Sure enough, a little trickle of blood has spiralled from its nose and now bloodies the back of its jacket. “Hmm,” it says, uncaring. “That will happen.” 

“Why?” Oliver leans forward, transfixed. 

“Because he’s beginning to understand,” Michael says, feeling the fake yellow door Gerry has left open inside it. “And if there’s one thing the Spiral cannot be, it’s understood.” 

Oliver stares at it for a second— and how he does that without hurting his eyes Michael does not know— before reaching into his jacket pocket. “I got this for you,” he says, holding out a dinky little mobile phone. “We can’t afford to go so long between meetings anymore, and they’re about to get a lot more sporadic.” 

Michael picks it up gingerly, dangling the phone from the tips of its fingers. “Alright,” it says, uncertain. From Michael Shelley’s memory, people who phone or text each other are friends. He and Gerry had texted day and night when they had been apart, when Michael Shelley still existed. Are Michael and Oliver friends? 

Oliver reaches out to pat it on the shoulder, looking amused at whatever he sees on Michael’s face. “I already have your number in my phone. I’ll call you when I have more useful information. It should be soon.” He glances to the side, in the direction of something neither can see, but which Oliver knows is there and Michael does not. “I’ve tracked a few of them nearby. You should be able to let him out soon if we’re lucky.” 

“Lucky,” Michael repeats, then laughs. Michael has never believed in luck. But if Oliver chooses to, Michael will not stop him. It stands, unwrapping itself from around the bench. It holds out the phone, shaking it. “Until our cellular communication, then.” 

Oliver grins and waves it off as it reaches for the handle to a door that wasn’t there a second ago, and isn’t there again after Michael has slipped through it. 

It relaxes once it is back in its hallways; in itself. It is safe here. Gerry too. It twists a little until it can see, from its hidden position in the yellow door, Gerry and a version of Michael Shelley from long ago. Michael doesn’t need to hear what they’re saying. It recognises the enraptured expression on the small Michael Shelley’s face, an expression he would later learn to hide but the core feelings of which he would always harbour for Gerry Keay. 

Gerry has taken off his duster, letting his guard down ever so slightly, still unconvinced this isn’t a trick. That’s fine. Michael never thought that Gerry was stupid. The opposite, in fact. Gerry sees too much of Michael, always has. Is it a blessing or a curse that Michael’s entire being defies this aspect of Gerry? 

Being a monster is easy to understand. And Gerry is blinded by grief. For… for Michael. So all Gerry sees is the easy monster. Allowing Gerry to see its past is a good distraction, but also dangerous for the both of them. Certainly for Michael. 

Gerry tilts his head, a smile playing at his lips, a considering quirk to his eyebrows, and then Michael feels warm blood trickling out of him, just a little. It is a worthy sacrifice to see Gerry smile again, but it wonders just how much it can let Gerry understand before it unravels entirely. 

The little Michael Shelley rambles on in the childish way he used to, and Gerry laughs aloud, and Michael considers that unraveling may be a worthy sacrifice as well.

* * *

Gerry knows he should be trying harder to find a way out. He _knows._ Clearly the doors into Michael’s past aren’t the way out, and if they were, they would lead into a world Gerry isn’t— and shouldn’t be— a part of. It’s just… he misses Michael with everything he has, and the chance to stay and see him, even if it isn’t the Michael he knew, overpowers him. 

However. Even he sees the red flag when he comes across the thing with Michael’s face and all he feels is mild apprehension and worry that his headache will come back. When had he become so desensitised to being here with this thing?

It doesn’t help that the thing is currently sitting on the floor with its back against the wall, tapping bemusedly at a device in its hands. A _phone._

Gerry gapes.

The thing looks up, revealing its face from behind the mass of blond hair twisting around it. Infuriatingly, it smiles to see him. 

“Hello,” it greets. Gerry grimaces, torn between attempting to hold a conversation and turning on his heel. But the lure of the phone is too great to pass up. It’s the first time there has been a way for Gerry to communicate with the outside world. 

So he swallows down his apprehension and the lump in his throat and asks, “What are you doing?” 

The thing’s gaze swivels back to the device in its hands. Gerry can’t see the sharp appendages that extend from its deceptively human fingers, but he knows they’re there. It must make using a phone somewhat difficult. 

“Oliver gave me a phone with which to receive his communications,” the thing says. It pauses. “It wants me to make a Google account. What is a Google account?” 

Gerry bites his lip, hard, to stop himself from laughing. Steeling himself, he takes a breath and approaches the thing, sliding down the wall to sit next to it. He cranes his neck to see the screen, and the thing shifts so the device is between them. He nearly recoils from the blond lock of hair that falls near his face at the movement. It smells like the shampoo Michael used to use.

It takes Gerry a moment to actually focus on the screen.

“There’s a skip button there, look,” Gerry says when his head is finally back on straight. He points. 

The thing grimaces. “I tried to press it but it hasn’t worked.” 

“Here.” Gerry reaches over to tap the skip button at the same time that the thing tries to hand him the phone. Their fingers brush. Gerry doesn’t know what is more repulsive: the thing sitting next to him, or the fact that touching it isn’t repulsive at all. He shakes his head sharply and takes the offered phone, pressing skip and waiting for the next prompt. 

It asks for the date and time. Gerry looks over to the thing that isn’t Michael but looks and smells like him and waits. It grins, delighted, and shrugs. Gerry enters a random date and time, rolling his eyes, and pauses at the next prompt. 

“Personal details,” he says. “Name, birthday…” 

“Michael,” it says. Gerry swallows and hangs his head for a second. 

“I don’t know how to explain to you that taking the name of the last person you murdered isn’t appropriate.” 

The thing looks frustrated, now. “I don’t know how to be something I am not. I apologise if you find it _offensive_ or _inappropriate_ that I am Michael, but I _am._ I don’t want to be, but I don’t have a say in the matter, any more than you have a say in whether you are Gerry.” 

Gerry stares at the thing— ‘Michael’. He swallows back bile as he enters ‘Michael’ into the first box, and because he doesn’t want to get into an argument about Michael’s birthday, enters Michael Shelley’s birth date into the second box and presses confirm. 

‘Michael’ lets out a breath. 

The phone connects to wi-fi automatically and Gerry actually doesn’t want to know how so he doesn’t ask. The phone background is already a yellow door, and there is one text from an unknown number. Gerry opens the notification before ‘Michael’ can tell him not to. 

**From Unknown: hey michael oliver here. updates pending**

Gerry raises an eyebrow. “Updates? And who’s Oliver?” 

“Oliver Banks, avatar of the End,” ‘Michael’ answers. 

“And updates?” Gerry prompts. 

‘Michael’ smiles at him. “Yes.” 

Gerry rolls his eyes. “Well, that’s your phone set up for you,” he says, making sure ‘Michael’ is looking at him while his fingers tap out a new message. “Not entirely sure why you need one, considering you can just appear anywhere, but whatever.” He deletes the SOS message he’s sent Sandy before relinquishing the phone to ‘Michael’. 

“Thank you,” ‘Michael’ says, sounding oddly sincere as it takes the phone back. Gerry looks away, flinching. His headache returns, and he isn’t surprised. It was only a matter of time, sitting next to this impossible creature. 

Gerry stands, unsteady, and begins his retreat until something catches his wrist and holds him there. “Stop,” he grits out. ‘Michael’ maneuvers until it can see his face, the picture of concern. 

He used to have headaches when Michael was still alive. Back then, Michael would bundle him up in homemade quilts and lie with him until they had subsided. Gerry had always found comfort in Michael. Is it a betrayal, that he desperately wants to find the same comfort now? His body sways towards ‘Michael’ even as his mind rebels. 

“What is wrong.” 

“Take a wild guess,” Gerry deflects, pressing his free hand to his forehead. 

“A headache again.” Its eyes widen. “Oh— oh no.” ‘Michael’ looks, of all things, guilty. It releases his hand and then pushes him backwards, but instead of slamming into the wall he falls through a doorway into pitch black. 

It doesn’t hurt when he hits the floor. It’s soft, like he’s fallen on a pile of pillows. He can’t see a thing, and it occurs to him he should probably fight back. ‘Michael’ is silhouetted in the doorway, though, and what little of its expression Gerry can make out looks withdrawn. 

“What is up with you?” Gerry asks, confused and feeling very much like he’s missing something big. 

‘Michael’ sighs deeply. “This was never to hurt you, you know. That has never been our intention.” 

Gerry scoffs and closes his eyes, relenting against the headache. “And yet you killed him.” 

“You’re wrong,” it says, but doesn’t elaborate. 

He jerks against a sharp pain in his head, ‘Michael’ suddenly looming over him with a disgusting growth speared on his finger. Before he can fight back, ‘Michael’ sinks into the darkness and leaves him there. 

The headache is gone, but Gerry doesn’t feel the need to leave the dark. It’s comforting, after wandering in this eyesore of a maze for so long. From the distance, there comes the sound of a phone vibrating, but Gerry feels like that’s not his problem.

He sleeps.

* * *

Gerry wakes up with a weight over him he hadn’t fallen asleep with, something soft and familiar. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and with the light spilling through the doorway he makes out just what it is. One of Michael’s old quilts. 

He presses the quilt to him, covering his face, and allows a single sob to wrack through his body before trying to compose himself. How long has it been, even? Time doesn’t work in the hallways, Gerry’s certain of that. He’d attempted to scratch markings into the walls to count how many days had passed, but that didn’t work when he had no reliable way of telling when it was night or day, nor a way back to the place he had scratched.

Eating, drinking, sleeping… those are things he doesn’t have to do anymore, it seems. He doesn’t feel particularly refreshed even after falling asleep in the dark room. Only relieved that he can still fulfil that one human function.

As tempting as it would be to just lie here, Gerry owes it to himself to escape. But he can’t bring himself to leave the quilt behind. So when he leaves the dark room it’s with Michael’s quilt wrapped around his shoulders, holding him together even now. 

The yellow door doesn’t surprise him when it materialises on the ceiling. By this point, he knows what to expect. He’s visited the child Michael so many times he feels he knows the kid better than his parents, which Gerry has come to realise is not a large feat at all. And at this point, though he knows it’s just prolonging the pain, he will take Michael in whatever form he can. If this is the Distortion’s plan to drive him crazy, it isn’t working. The glimpses of Michael’s past is the only thing keeping him sane anymore.

He reaches up to grab the doorknob and twists. He takes a step forward, and suddenly he’s through the ceiling door and into a cobblestone alleyway, the scent of Italian restaurant perfuming the air. 

It is nighttime in the village where little Michael lives. Gerry knows. He’s been taken on a tour of the place before. It takes some time to spot the boy, curled up and shaking against a dumpster, but when he does Gerry is surprised at what he finds. He’s at the boy’s side before he can think, but he’s uncertain of exactly what to do here. This isn’t the little boy he’s used to meeting this way. This is a teenaged Michael, distraught and weeping. 

“Michael?” he asks softly, hands raised towards the boy but unwilling to touch lest the contact be unwelcome.

The boy gasps and looks up, hesitating for only a second before launching himself at Gerry. “Thank God, thank God,” he mutters as Gerry wraps his arms around him and holds him tight. “Thank God.” 

“Are you okay?” Stupid question, but necessary. 

Michael sniffles. “You’ve been gone for so long… and now he’s left me too.” 

“Who?” 

“Ryan.” 

Gerry closes his eyes, sighs. He’s heard that name before from the Michael he was in love with. “What happened?” he questions, though he already knows. 

Michael’s voice is shaky, terrified. “He… he was being stalked. They said he was mad, but he _wasn’t.”_ Michael pulls back, eyes blazing, to make sure Gerry believes him. “He wasn’t. There was a door, and I tried… I tried to…” 

Gerry holds him close, guilty for the things he can’t tell Michael, guilty for the relief having Michael in his arms brings. “I believe you,” he whispers. 

“The worst part,” Michael whispers, so quietly Gerry strains to hear, “the worst part is that I wanted to follow him. It would have been so easy…” 

Gerry clutches him tighter and Michael doesn’t resist. 

It is with a sinking feeling that Gerry realises Michael was always destined to be taken from him. By the Spiral, always. He had dodged it barely as the teen in front of him, but who knows how many more near misses Michael never even noticed? And oh, how perfect the irony that as soon as Gerry is in a position to protect him, that’s when Michael dies. Gerry should have been able to save him. He knew what Gertrude Robinson was. He knew. But he failed, and Michael is gone, and Gerry’s in limbo clutching the teen version of the man he loves and wanting to die. 

He holds Michael there, letting the boy tire himself through tears, until the sounds of a search party reach them. He doesn’t want to let him go, but he knows he’ll see Michael again, because that’s the only upside of being trapped in these hallways. 

The yellow door will always be there.

* * *

“Here,” Oliver says quietly, not blinking when Michael’s door materialises beside him. It wipes the blood from its hands before Oliver can see.

“Wonderful,” Michael says. “Let’s kill them.” 

“As much as I love that idea,” Oliver warns, throwing an arm out to stop Michael’s advance, “We should probably try the threatening plan first. Considering their cult is massive and we are but two small beings.” 

“I am a being of incomprehensible size,” Michael counters, but it does agree. “We shall do the threatening. The faster I can let Gerry out the better.” 

Oliver frowns. “Didn’t you like, cure his brain cancer last week?” 

_“He_ doesn’t know that.” 

“Ah yes, how could I forget. Throat of lies and all that.” 

“Quite.” 

Oliver brandishes a knife that looks like it was made of shadows and darkness. A gift from his patron, Michael assumes, though he has no experience with such things. After all, Michael isn’t an avatar, it is a manifestation. “Well then. After you,” Oliver says. 

Michael grins. 

The warehouse they burst into is filled with debris, a wasteland of brown and grey. They’re definitely at the right place; avatars jump down from the rafters and jump from their tables, abandoning card games and computers with the same violence. Flames are upon them in an instant, but Oliver’s visions of death help him avoid them, and Michael twists out of the way with ease. A loud bang rings out, deafening, and Michael turns just in time to see a bullet headed right towards it. Rather than hitting it, the bullet disappears into a crevice in Michael’s being, following its hallways in an endless loop. 

Michael is upon the shooter in a second, who lets out a yelp as Michael grabs him by the throat and lets its fingers draw a trickle of blood. Michael allows the slamming of a door to silence the room and draw attention as it speaks, “Stop,” with such a forceful echo that it puts the fire closest to it out completely. 

The room is frozen. Several avatars of the Desolation stand poised to fight, none of whom Michael recognises. 

“Gerard Keay,” Michael begins, and is cut off by a derisive scoff by one of the avatars, a red-haired woman with harsh features. 

“God’s sake, really?” she says. “You’re the ones hiding him? Just let us kill him and be done with it.” 

“Can’t do that I’m afraid,” Oliver says. “See, we like Gerard Keay, so we’d kind of like him to remain alive for a while.” 

The red-haired woman nods in a mockery of understanding. “Well, that sucks, because we’re gonna kill him.” 

Michael laughs. The echo makes several avatars flinch, which Michael delights in. “No,” it giggles, the sound cold. “You’re not.” 

A different avatar, a withering old man, clears his throat. “Yes. Ha ha. We are,” he responds, mocking Michael’s speech patterns. Michael narrows its eyes and calculates just how far it would have to lean forward to be able to slash the man’s throat with its fingers. 

“Why do you want to kill Gerard anyway?” Oliver asks, ignoring the both of them.

“Diego Molina,” the woman answers. “His sister wants vengeance for his murder, and since she’s leading us, so do we.” She sounds like she doesn’t care what happens either way. “I’m telling you this because I don’t have a quarrel with you. We’re going to keep coming and coming until we kill him. Best to just get out of our way and let it happen.” 

Oliver makes a considering sound. “You know, Michael, it sounds like they won’t be dissuaded.” 

“It does,” Michael says, near a growl. “Good news, Oliver. There will be killing after all.” The man in his grasp squeaks before Michael rips out his throat, and then the fighting begins again. 

It is incredibly satisfying to puncture the avatars with its talons and rip them apart. Even the ones who have turned themselves to wax, Michael can twist until there is no conceivable way for them to find their way back to reality again. 

Oliver too seems satisfied with the efficiency with which they cut through the Lightless Flame’s followers. He does pause before he kills the last one, though. “Aren’t you hungry?” Oliver asks. “You haven’t eaten in months.” 

It is so tempting, Michael thinks. The red-haired woman struggles in Oliver’s grip, but the deep gashes in her skin from Oliver’s knife render her efforts useless. She would be delicious to set loose in its hallways, to drain until she is nothing but a collection of fear and madness. And yet Michael declines.

“I would, I really would, but I don't want to risk them running into Gerry accidentally. Once this is all over I’ll hunt again, but not until then.” 

Oliver smiles. “Suit yourself,” he says, and then closes his eyes in serene reverence as he ends the life of his victim. 

Sometimes Michael envies the purpose avatars have. Its own self-given purpose— to protect Gerry— goes against its very nature. Gerry will probably be Michael’s ruin, in the end. But that’s a problem for a later Michael.

“Well, that was unfortunate,” Oliver says, not sounding like it was unfortunate at all. “Looks like there’s no stopping the cult from going after Gerry. Suppose we’ll just have to kill them all.” 

“Suppose we must,” Michael agrees. “I just hope we do it soon. I may have cured his disease, but that hasn’t stopped Gerry from going stir crazy. I’m out of childhood memories to keep him occupied, I’ve had to graduate to teenage ones, and those…” Michael shudders. 

Oliver sucks at his lip, thinking while he wipes the blood from his knife. “I could speak to him,” Oliver says eventually. 

“You… what?” 

“Humans need human contact to survive,” Oliver explains gently. “You did, back when you were Michael Shelley. And Gerry does now.” 

Michael frowns. “Didn’t you just hear me? I’m giving him human contact. I’m giving him so much human contact I’m running out of humans to contact him with!” 

Oliver stares him down. “But is it… _real_ human contact?” 

Michael hesitates. “Not technically!” 

Oliver smiles grimly. “It’s settled, then. Eat me and I’ll kill you.” 

“Clean up first before you come inside,” Michael instructs. Gerry might balk at the sight of this man covered in blood. “The door will follow you until you enter. I’m going to check for leads here.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to—?” 

“I’m perfectly fine. Michael Shelley was an archival assistant to Gertrude Robinson, you know. I know how to search for clues even if I don’t know quite what I’m looking for. And right now, I very much do.” 

Instead of leaving, Oliver waves a hand towards Michael’s door. “Mind giving me a lift to my hotel?” 

“Step right through,” Michael says, already crouching to examine the corpses they’d left. “My body is thy taxi.” 

Oliver snorts and steps through the door, while Michael spirals everything that might be useful into the air for sorting. It keeps an eye ever inwards, pointed in Oliver’s direction, and another in Gerry’s. It is the first time Michael has ever wanted to keep anyone safe inside his halls.

* * *

Gerry is back in the dark room. His headaches have long since disappeared, but he likes the reprieve from the winding, incomprehensible corridors. 

There’s a knock at the door to the dark room, and it throws Gerry for a loop. ‘Michael’ has never felt the need to knock seeing as it _is_ the doors and hallways and such, and he doubts it has developed a sense of politeness now. Gerry climbs to his feet, once again wishing for a weapon. It could be something terrible, another limb of the Spiral— or another victim trapped in the hallways. 

He opens the door wide and tenses for action, but the man who greets him is not what Gerry expected. The man in the doorway has rich, dark skin and well-maintained dreadlocks just past his shoulders, meaning he’s definitely not a victim of Michael’s. He’s not frazzled enough for that. Furthermore, he looks like he’s just changed into an ironed outfit; smart grey trousers and a pristine dress shirt, the formality of which is offset by the soft grey shawl on top. 

In other words, this is not a limb of the Spiral or one of its victims. It can’t be. So who is he? 

“Michael said I’d find you in here,” the man says, smiling. 

Gerry startles. “I— sorry, yes, hello. I uh, haven’t seen anyone but ‘Michael’ for ages. It’s left my social skills a little rusty. Do you want to—?” he steps aside and waves an arm to gesture the man inside. 

“Thanks,” says the man, stepping through and taking a seat Gerry hadn’t even realised was there. Seeing Gerry’s expression, the man grins. “He’s keeping an eye on us. Not too closely, but close enough. I’m Oliver, by the way.”

“Gerry. Hi.” 

“You can sit,” Oliver suggests. Gerry sits and finds a chair beneath him as if it always had been, and Gerry wonders how on Earth Oliver has managed to gain control of the environment so quickly. “So. How are you?” 

Gerry blinks. “What?”

Oliver makes a ‘go on’ motion with his hands. “Just that. How are you doing?” 

Gerry leans back in his chair, suddenly apprehensive. “What are you, my therapist? How do you think I’m doing? I’ve been trapped in a hell dimension for however the fuck long.” 

Oliver laughs. “Trust me, this isn’t anywhere near hell. You’re actually extremely safe here.” 

“With that monster prowling around?” 

“The monster who you helped set up the phone I gave him?” Oliver asks, and Gerry kicks himself for not connecting those dots sooner. 

“The monster who killed my best friend,” he corrects. 

“And who might that be?” 

Gerry swallows hard. “Michael Shelley.” 

Oliver tuts at him, and Gerry feels condescended to. “Michael isn’t dead, you’re _in him.”_ Gerry shakes his head, a denial on his lips, but Oliver speaks over him. “You’re looking at this all wrong. He’s not a being of the Stranger, replacing your friend. He’s just… twisted. Into something different. But it’s still Michael.” 

Gerry shifts in his seat, dismayed and wary of this complete stranger cutting him to the core so easily. The idea that Michael might not be beyond his reach is… tantalising. It knocks the breath from his lungs as he considers that there might be a way to be with Michael again. 

It’s also too good to be true, if Gerry’s track record is anything to go by. 

If what Oliver says is the truth, Gerry has been lashing out at his Michael the entire time. But if he’s wrong, and Gerry _does_ try to… befriend this twisted monster, it will be the biggest betrayal Gerry could possibly inflict on the man he loves.

The awful thing is, he’s been desperate for a way out for who knows how long, but as soon as he’s offered a choice, a decision to make? He’s paralysed. He can’t have gotten _used_ to this, can he? 

Oliver pats him on the shoulder, sympathetic, and he’s surprised by just how good the contact feels. “I think that’s our cue,” Oliver says, looking at something behind him. Gerry turns to see a yellow door, and he freezes with the indecision of it. 

He hears Oliver’s quiet footfalls as he leaves the other way, and suddenly Gerry understands what the teenage Michael had said to him once, about how easy it was, the longing from that door. 

He doesn’t resist. He walks through.

* * *

The hotel towers above it, opulent and fading in the wake of modernity. _Hotel Encendido_ is emblazoned above the set of glass doors, matching the type on the set of keys Michael had pilfered from the warehouse. The only useful thing in there, beyond disposable cell phones, maps, and stolen statements from the Magnus Institute that mention Gerry. 

One of the cell phones had received a text from Michael’s own phone, an SOS message from Gerry. Michael doesn’t know whether to be proud that Gerry had managed to outsmart it or annoyed that Gerry felt the need to do so in the first place.

The Spiral’s need to be misunderstood and Michael’s own need for Gerry to accept it confounds Michael once again. Michael will face consequences if it tries to make Gerry understand, already has, but it has realised that it cannot go without Gerry any more than Michael Shelley could. 

Is Michael capable of love? Doubtful. But Michael Shelley was, and he loved Gerry, and now Michael is Michael Shelley several degrees to the left and also a manifestation of the Distortion, so anything is possible. 

But before it figures that conundrum out, it must ensure Gerry’s survival.

It is different, hunting while being what remains of Michael Shelley. But hunt Michael does.

* * *

The sight that greets him on the other side of the door is hauntingly familiar. He’s back in the Institute bullpen. 

That throws him for a loop. Has Michael finally let him out? 

No. 

Within throwing distance is what confirms for Gerry that he is still connected to the hallways. Within throwing distance is Michael’s desk, cluttered with documents and very much occupied by Michael himself. Gerry can’t help the gasp that leaves him, because Michael looks _exactly_ like he did when he was alive, when Gerry knew him and loved him and ached for him. 

Michael looks up, flicking a lock of hair from his eyes, and smiles to see him. “Afternoon, Gerry,” he says, like he hasn’t just punched Gerry’s heart out. He shifts from his perch on the desk to face him. “I was excited when you arrived a few months ago, but you didn’t recognise me. It’s been interesting getting to know you from the beginning.” 

“You…” 

“The other you, the one who works here, he’s on a break.” Michael gestures to the fire exit where Gerry used to escape for a smoke. It occurs to him that since he’s been in the hallways he hasn’t needed to smoke once. He does not need to now. That means something, but Gerry can’t bring himself to acknowledge it. 

Gerry takes a breath before he approaches. It takes everything in his power not to fling himself at the other man, but he does take in everything he can about Michael’s appearance, his voice, his scent… 

“Are you alright?” Michael’s smile falters. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

Gerry swallows thickly. “I have.” 

“Oh.” Michael glances at the papers in his hands, then abandons them on the desk next to him. “Tell me about it?” he says softly. 

“I can’t.” 

Michael gives a little laugh, then. Not the echoey nightmare-fuel laugh he’s used to now, but the soft pleasant laugh that never fails to lift Gerry’s mood. “Why on Earth not? You know you can tell me anything.” 

“Because you’re the ghost,” Gerry admits, wrecked. 

Understanding dawns on Michael, and his smile turns sad. Michael leans over as if confiding a secret. “You’re wrong, you know. I’ve been right here all along.” He reaches for Gerry’s hand, and Gerry is helpless to stop him as he traces his nimble fingers over Gerry’s eye tattoos. “All of these and you still can’t see me.” 

“I don’t— I don’t understand what you mean,” Gerry chokes out. Michael tugs on his hand and Gerry stumbles forward, catching himself on the desk with his free hand. He is excruciatingly close to Michael, now. The shampoo he remembers fills his nostrils, and combined with the smug smirk on Michael’s face it reminds him of—

Why? Why now? When he finally has what he wants?

“I would stop speaking in riddles if you’d let me,” Michael breathes. “But it’s your choice.” 

Gerry shakes his head. Is this a betrayal? A violation? Of who? 

“Gerry, love, you’re shaking. Calm down. It’s alright?”

Gerry doesn’t actually squeak, but it’s a near thing. “What did you say?” 

Michael laughs again. Gerry could cry at the sound. “You must know I love you. I loved you then and I love you now. Why else would you be here?” Michael releases him only to run his hands up and down Gerry’s arms. It would be soothing if Gerry wasn’t attuned to his every movement. Even separated by clothes, Michael’s touch sets him alight. 

It had been like this, once. Before. Gerry doesn’t want to let it go again, no matter what. The knowledge sinks into his bones that this will be his ruin.

“Is it wrong? That I love you too?” 

Michael bites his lip, drawing Gerry’s gaze to the delicate pink. “That depends on what you intend to do about it.” 

Gerry grips the desk next to Michael, hard. If this is a betrayal, he will never forgive himself. But he thinks Michael will. And he’s tired of throwing walls up when everything he wants is on the other side. 

It’s easier to bracket Michael against the desk. It’s easier to tip forward and kiss him.

It feels like the first breath of air after drowning. Sweet release. Michael’s lips are soft, and he kisses him slow to savour the feeling, eyes shut and forehead pressed to his, simply existing. God, it is good to be this close to him. Michael is quiet, but Gerry can hear the little pants of air, feel it against his mouth, and it gives him away as clear as shouting. Gerry’s certain he’s the same, but he can’t focus on himself right now. Everything is Michael. 

Bracketing Michael isn’t enough. He shifts until his arms are wrapped around Michael’s waist, until they could not possibly be closer. 

“I love you,” Gerry moans. The words feel like they have been pulled from his throat. “I love you, I love you—” 

Michael cuts him off by kissing him again, his grip on Gerry tightening to the point of pain. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I never wanted to be like this.” 

Gerry shakes his head. “No, you’re perfect. Michael, you’re—” Michael kisses him harder, fiercer. Bites at his lips with too sharp teeth. Too many teeth. The hands on his arms… the fingers wrap around his arms again and again, his hair tickles the back of Gerry’s neck, his waist… 

Gerry refuses to open his eyes, but he breaks the kiss. “What are you trying to achieve?” 

Michael laughs coldly. “I was trying to do this slowly, but we’re almost out of time and I need to concentrate. I’m, ah… about to let you go.” 

Gerry’s eyes snap open, and he flinches at the sight that greets him only for a second. The newer, scarier Michael fills his vision in all of his nightmarish glory, and for the first time the view doesn’t repulse him. 

For the first time he can see Michael in the trepidation in his eyes, the gentling of his grip. 

“Let me go?” 

Michael nods. “Soon. So soon.” 

“But what if…” Gerry bites his lip. “Does that mean you don’t…” he can’t finish the thoughts. He thought his conflict was over, but Michael always was good at flipping his world upside down. 

“We can discuss this— oof,” Michael grimaces and falls backwards, ripped away from Gerry by some unknown force. He clips through the floor, the floorboards rippling in his wake. “Not to love you and leave you or anything,” Michael’s voice echoes around him. 

Gerry stumbles away from the desk as everything warps, desperately searching for a glimpse of yellow. “I happen to feel very loved and leaved!” he yells back, narrowly dodging a chair being flung in his direction. 

He gives into muscle memory and flees to the fire exit, not looking back for fear of what he might see behind him. In fact he’s concentrating so hard on not looking behind him that he almost misses the fire escape in front of him. 

Or rather, the yellow door that has replaced the fire escape. 

Gerry swears and claps a hand over his eyes as soon as he’s out. The halls, having been an eyesore before, are now unbearable to look at. Just what exactly is going on? And just how much has Michael been actively trying not to hurt him, if this is what happens when he needs to concentrate? 

_And,_ his line of thought continues as he cautiously removes his hand from his face, why even keep him here in the first place if not to terrorise him? All questions he might have gotten around to had Michael not unceremoniously disappeared on him. 

From what little he allows himself to see of the hallway, there are garish neon arrows on the floor starting from his feet. He considers going the other direction for about half a second before resigning himself to whatever Michael’s leading him towards. He already made that choice when he kissed Michael up against his desk. 

Oh. He pauses, blushing. 

He _kissed_ Michael. Michael’s not dead. He might actually have a future he doesn’t hate every second of. 

Grinning, he takes off in a run down the corridor, heeding every arrow whilst trying not to blind himself.

It’s going fine until something shakes beneath his feet. The hallway tilts sharply, slamming Gerry into the wall, and he groans in pain. There’s a whistle. He looks up to see a bullet shoot past, right where Gerry had just been. He stares. 

“Hey, Michael? What the actual fuck is going on?” 

No-one answers him, but then he’s slipping forwards as the hallway tilts again until it’s a slide following the directions of the arrows. Gerry does his best to brace himself against corners but at this angle there’s not much he can do but hope he hasn’t gotten this all wrong and Michael doesn’t really want to kill him. 

The final turn has him gaping. Another yellow door waits at the very bottom, but this one’s of a different quality to the ones he’s used to. Older, more faded.

The hallways right themselves just as Gerry accepts he’s about to go splat against the door, but the momentum keeps him stumbling on, and he falls through the doorway and out into absolute carnage. 

He’s in a fancy dining hall and many things are on fire, including several people. Gerry ducks a flaming projectile that might have been someone’s arm. Everything is loud and awful.

A familiar face, Oliver, staggers into view. He’s wrestling with someone, and from the waxy quality of their skin he assumes it’s a desolation avatar. Oliver guts them with a shiny black knife. For a split second, Gerry thinks he sees a dark tendril connecting him and the body, but then it’s gone, and Oliver is waving at him.

“Gerry! Sorry about this, but there were… a lot more of them than we thought. Michael didn’t want you trapped if something happened to him.”

And doesn’t that freeze the blood in his veins. 

“Where is he,” Gerry demands. Oliver waves a lazy hand in one direction before rushing off to fight another avatar, or wax creature, or whatever the hell that thing is. Gerry picks up a broken table leg near him and brandishes it, but there’s so much fire and debris he doubts anyone but Oliver has noticed him yet. 

Now he’s looking, Michael is easy to spot. A glorious monstrosity of impossible proportions, Michael shreds through avatars like butter across the hall, but there’s blood and burns on him and Gerry worries it won’t be enough. But he will be damned if he lets Michael slip through his fingers a second time, monster or no. 

He thinks fast. Desolation avatars. He’s killed some with sharp objects like scalpels before, and Oliver had just killed one with a knife, but he needs something that will actually help them, and fighting avatars on his own will not. His own proficiency lies in Leitner destruction. If he were destroying a Leitner, he’d look for opposites, things that cannot coexist. 

Cold. Gerry’s gaze falls upon the kitchen door, currently propped open by a corpse, and that’s all the welcome he needs.

He dodges out of the way of an avatar who notices him, their eyes widening with recognition, but he batters them over the head before they can call out. It’s so easy Gerry assumes that they’re a new avatar, and a quick headcount confirms that most of them are the same. So someone’s created an army of new Desolation avatars. For a ritual maybe? 

Gerry shrugs and ducks into the kitchen, and from there, the freezer. Thankfully when he wrenches the door open, though there is frozen food, there is also a fuck tonne of ice bags. Score.

“Michael! Door!” he yells, trusting that Michael will hear him. It doesn’t make sense that he would, but that hasn’t stopped him so far. With a creak, a yellow door appears in the floor in front of him and opens wide. With a delighted grin, Gerry starts chucking ice into it. 

He pops out of the kitchen just in time to see the remaining avatars and monsters each get a bag of ice to the face, apart from the one closest to Michael, who melts the bag aimed at her and turns it to scalding water before it hits her. She looks vaguely familiar. 

Oliver is a whirlwind of death with his knife, plunging it into the stunned avatars. Michael is the same with his bladed fingers. Gerry is so busy watching Michael that he barely notices Oliver join him at the door, arranging himself bizarrely like a bodyguard. “Elena Molina,” Oliver says, pointing at the enraged woman, and suddenly things start making sense.

Elena and Michael circle each other, predatory in their own ways. Gerry grabs Oliver’s arm and drags him forwards, and Oliver resists.

“It’s safer for you away from them,” Oliver protests, but Gerry only cares about not leaving Michael alone. 

When Michael has his back to Gerry, Elena catches sight of him. 

“Good of you to finally join us,” she says, voice low and caustic.

Gerry shrugs. “I’ve been acid tripping for the last few months. Didn’t even know I was missing a party.” 

“That was on purpose,” Michael throws over his shoulder. Gerry rolls his eyes.

“Is this a joke to you?” Elena spits, setting her hand alight. “You killed my brother.” 

“‘Prepare to die’?” Gerry retorts. Oliver snickers. 

Elena’s eyes narrow. “Actually, yes,” she says, and then incinerates Michael.

Or at least Gerry thinks that’s what happened until Michael falls through a yellow door on the roof and tackles Elena from behind. “Fuck me,” he murmurs, clutching his chest. 

“It’s the least you can do,” Elena continues, dancing away from Michael’s reach, leaving charred footprints in the ground where she had stood. “He meant everything to me. And you took him away!” 

“In my defense, he tried to kill me first,” Gerry says. Elena snarls at him, and the distraction allows Michael to catch her on the cheek. 

She cauterises the wound instantly. It's disgusting. 

“Look, I know how it feels to lose someone who means everything to you,” Gerry tries again. “It’s like… it’s like everything around you fades away. And nothing matters anymore except the knowledge that he’s not there.”

Elena recoils. “You don’t know _anything,”_ she screams. Steams hisses away from her face. She evaporates her tears.

Michael makes a high pitched, disagreeing noise. “We know some things,” he says. “We know you splintered from your weird little cult and recruited a bunch of idiots that we’ve just decimated.” 

Gerry nods. “And we know that you’re grieving, and it hurts. God, it hurts,” he takes a breath. “But also you’re a member of like, a violent death cult, so we’re gonna kill you and I’m not gonna mourn too hard about it. And then you can join your dumbass brother in whatever hell is reserved for you.”

Despite his utter transparency, it seems Elena cannot resist such a blatant taunt, so she abandons her back and forth with Michael to launch herself at him. Oliver pushes him back, but it is Michael who bounds in front of him right as Elena reaches him, and it is Michael who staggers as she plunges a flaming hand through his torso. 

Gerry can’t breathe. He tips forward, anything to get him to Michael, to try to help him, but Oliver drags him away. 

Michael groans. Starts to convulse. 

“Hang— hang on—” Michael says, sounding dazed, and all Gerry can think is he’s going to lose Michael _again,_ and for the second time it’s going to be _his fault._

Michael takes a few gasping breaths, and then.

And then he sneezes. 

Elena falls to the floor, her hand slipping out of Michael’s torso and not even leaving a mark. Oliver doesn’t stop him this time as he rushes to Michael’s side. He clutches Michael to him and stares down at Elena, who is now cold and dead with a bullet hole in her forehead.

“I was wondering where that went,” Michael says mildly. 

Gerry cannot help it. He bursts into hysterical laughter.

He falls against Michael, unable to hold himself up now the adrenaline on watching the creature he loves nearly die again has dissipated. Michael curls his unreasonably long arms around him and simply holds him. 

“So. That’s why you trapped me in the hallways?” he asks eventually. 

“Correct. You know what they say about the road to hell.” 

“It’s paved with neon arrows and hurts to look at for too long?” 

“Something like that.” 

“And you couldn’t have been. I dunno. Less creepy about it?” 

Michael giggles. “I really don’t think so.” 

When he regains the ability to move his arms with a degree of accuracy, he adjusts his hold to look Michael in the eye. 

“Those… glimpses in the past. Were they you?” 

Michael’s sheepish smile is as familiar as his own reflection. “They were as close to the truth as I am capable of giving you.” 

Gerry nods. “Alright. Here’s a truth. I can’t lose you again.” 

Michael bends to press a kiss to Gerry’s forehead. “Even if I am a creepy monster?”

Gerry grimaces. “I did struggle with that part, for a while. But you’re you. And that’s enough.” 

Both jump at a noise behind them. Oliver grins. “Go home and kiss already,” he heckles. 

Michael doesn’t need to be told twice, apparently. He ushers Gerry through yet another yellow door, and before Gerry knows it they’re at his flat. 

It’s dark and cold and bare. There’s a rug, a couch, and an old television set. The posters on the wall don’t do much to disguise the emptiness of the floorspace. 

“Ah,” Gerry blushes. “I haven’t been here in a while.” 

“I’m sure it’s a welcome relief,” Michael shrugs, moving to the couch and arranging himself in a tangle of limbs so convoluted Gerry doesn’t allow himself to try to decipher them lest he get another headache. 

He clears his throat as he joins him on the couch, sinking into the comfort. He never thought he’d miss this place, but months living in fear will make anything feel homely in comparison. 

“You’re staying, then?” Gerry asks, seeking out Michael’s hand. 

“Only if…” 

Gerry interlocks their fingers, feeling Michael consciously dull his own blades so as not to cut him. 

“You’re staying, then.” 

Michael hums and wraps himself around Gerry. His skin tingles where they touch. Gerry thinks, distantly, of Michael’s old quilts, but he can’t bring himself to ask about them now. For once, they have all the time in the world. Michael is apparently invulnerable now, and willing to take bullets for him, which Gerry is simultaneously terrified and relieved by. 

He decides in that instant that even if Michael is to be his ruin, he doesn’t care. Because Michael is here and alive and loves him and that’s all he wanted.

For the first time in a very long time, Gerry’s life isn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my amazing partner/illustrator @MisasBiggestFan, we love and stan they are amazing! Please go give them some love [ here!](https://aroace-steve-rogers.tumblr.com/post/617299589077286912/gerrymichael-big-bang-2020-hell-yeah-i-worked)
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! :)


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